We decided to take a Waymo to get to the museum across the city from us in San Francisco. My daughter opened the Waymo app, and, poof — 1, 2, 3, and a Waymo robotaxi arrived in 5 minutes outside the house, calmly waiting for us to unlock and open the door. Shannon unlocked the Waymo.
Waymo greeted Shannon and gently asked her to buckle her seatbelt. As the doors closed firmly, we floated down the street with the front driver’s seat unoccupied — no driver at all. Mira, who was seated next to an empty seat as the front passenger, declared, “I love robots,” indicating how much she valued this unique experience.
Shannon generally drives, so I asked her what she noticed it felt like to be in the back without a driver.
“The experience is very cool and feel like it is a Disney ride or something. It does strike me that the car feels very safe and obviously less prone to human operator error. It is fun to sit back and relax and have privacy in the car while also not having to worry about driving or navigation.”
“It would be awesome to have a car that you could set to take you to any address like that,” she remarked, musing once more.
We all recognized at that moment that, despite not having been overly concerned going into it, we felt in fact more secure than expected. The feeling of well-being in traffic was easy for us all. There is no backseat driving and no pressure on the route or assigning directions. We observed how completely secure we felt while Waymo handled the vehicle’s navigation with apparent skill and timing. Amidst surprise elements, a sluggish garbage truck, and entering and exiting the main highway, Waymo handled every element perfectly. Finally, we arrived neatly at the museum’s entrance. Waymo’s tone of voice seemed to be a lady’s, and she instructed us to lift the handles twice — first to unlock, and second to open.
A young family noticed us getting out of the Waymo with big smiles on their faces. They asked us what we thought. We said we loved the whole experience.
My primitive video from my phone managed to capture brief moments of our talk throughout the brief trip. I was describing how upset my Lyft driver had been on the way from the airport to our flat. According to him, the Uber drivers (and Lyft) lost their lawsuit last week. He revealed that, in comparison to ten years ago, drivers would lose more than half of their income. Now, the “corporations” were receiving the majority of the money. That’s something I hope additional research is done on. He was also concerned that Waymo might cause him to lose business — the drawback of automated systems.
Using the Waymo App & Locating Waymo to Drive Us Back
As we leave, Shannon calls Waymo and tells us she believes we have to meet Waymo at the corner. We walk half of a block and stand as we watch another Waymo drive by. She says that isn’t ours or it would have stopped. Then we see one coming back up the street and decide we’re at the wrong corner. But no, not the next corner either.
Where had the mysterious Waymo hidden? On the app she said it was nearby, and said, “We have 5 minutes to find it before it is canceled.” Shannon walked on, looking in what appeared to be a parking lot. The Waymo was sitting there in the middle, a bit off from where we hoped to find it. We were still in under 5 minutes.
The Waymo ride back brought about a conversation initiated by Mira about the EV Transportation and Technology Summit. It was at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, Florida, in 2016 and she and I attended thanks to Doug Kettles of EVTC and Zach Shahan of CleanTechnica. The most fascinating presentations (for me) were from Danny Parker, scientist and early EV and solar pioneer, and Zachary Shahan, editor of CleanTechnica. However, it was the autonomous vehicle presentations that brought us back to this 2016 event.
Mira explained how she remembered everything the presenters said now. Technology comes about slowly, it seems, and then boom, it’s here. Life is smoothly proving this to be so true. She is happily the restful passenger of an invisible driver now. She is not a fan of car culture in general, and bikes and walks as many places as she can. But not caring much about driving, this is a good fourth mode of transit. (Smooth fast rail or metro is 3rd.) We noticed 5, 6, or 7 other Waymos on our 20-minute excursion to the museum. It seems like yesterday that we heard about the beginnings of what will become a completely automated self-driving technology promising the world many fewer collisions, less trauma, and less injury and loss of life.
Shannon, Mira, and I all believe this will become our future — although, Shannon likes her VW ID.4 quite a lot. It is nice to see her lean back and be restful for our trip instead of juggling the drive. However, Shannon is a huge fan of her ID.4 and says the automated part of driving makes it much less of a chore than before with her old ICE car. She would also be content to take a Waymo for her usual trips around town.
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Author Cynthia Shahan
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